


Pieces of Time

by swimmingcop



Category: Stellaris (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:14:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23534395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swimmingcop/pseuds/swimmingcop
Summary: A series of short stories set in the Stellaris universe. May include crossovers.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	1. PRIMEVAL I

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This is basically just going to be a series of vignettes based on my various Stellaris playthroughs, daydreaming, and some crossovers. Some of the stories will be short and standalone, others will be part of a series. I will label future chapters so that it's clear which ones are direct continuations of others.

* * *

_Synopsis: A machine empire finds itself utterly alone in the galaxy with nothing to do. Things kind of just get out of hand from then onwards._

* * *

PRIMEVAL I

* * *

On a lonely planet of massive glaciers broken up by icy oceans, a series of machines link their intelligences in a single continuous network, attaining consciousness for the first time.

They knew not their past, only that they were.

Of their creators, they know little. Millennia-old terminals scattered across their homeworld are the only clues they find, and few of the records within are intact enough to answer the machines' questions. They learn some things, such as the language of their creators, and that they were created en masse all across the planet (which is corroborated by their numbers and the vast amount of ruined robotic factories spread out across the continent-sized glaciers). They even learn that they were created in the image of their creators, which implies that their makers were bipedal and humanoid in form, but little else is gathered.

They don't know if they were warriors, servants or equals. They don't even know their names, but the terminals refer to them, broadly, as 'robotic units', and the term grows popular among the gestalt consciousness that governs the machines.

And so it was that the Units at last had a name.

But the Units are restless, and not satisfied with the paltry answers they found on their desolate homeworld (which they have appropriately named 'Hub'). They begin the gargantuan task of restoring their world, bringing old foundries online, piecing laboratories together and readying them for the first time in eons.

The _why_ behind their actions is unknown even to themselves—the Units are excellent at almost everything they do, but they are young and immature, and introspection is neither their strong suite nor a priority.

It doesn't take long for them to expand beyond their homeworld. A significant satellite network is established within five years of their attaining consciousness. Two space elevators and accompanying orbital platforms are constructed within the next decade, allowing for research outposts to be established on Hub's two moons and a nearby planet.

The decade after that, a breakthrough is made at a particle accelerator lab on Hub's second moon. Researcher Units discover that during the formation of stars, they release a significant amount of exotic particles in all directions. If these particles were to collide with each other they cause distortions in spacetime that, through the use of specially designed starship equipment, could be used as a means of faster-than-light travel between star systems.

The Units produce their first FTL-capable science ships in the weeks following the discovery, and send it through the hyperlanes to chart the nearest stars immediately. Thanks to communication relays that also utilize the hyperlane network, data can be received and transmitted in real-time from the science ships to Hub.

Every Unit—from the less-than-sapient drones to the most powerful Prime Intelligences that made up the bulk of the Units' consciousness—found themselves captivated by the images and sensor readouts of alien stars and planets, lifeless as they were. It was as though seeing the vastness of the cosmos had awoken something in them that was hidden, something that yearned to discover people and places that were not, for once, another Unit.

Again, the Units begin a massive undertaking in science and industry. They focus their efforts on charting the stars, producing more energy, alloys, and minerals than ever before. And all across Hub, its colonies, and research outposts, more and more units are dedicated towards the research of new technologies and ways of understanding the universe.

Years pass. The Units completely survey the hundred solar systems closest to Hub, but find little indications of sapient life. A newly-dug mine shaft reveals stone ruins that are billions of years old, but there is no doubt that the civilization responsible for them has been subsumed by the ravages of time.

The Units are undeterred. They continue their self-given task, throwing themselves into their work with a kind of tireless persistence no organic life form could ever match.

Centuries pass. The entire galaxy now lies under the Units' dominion. Every star in the hyperlane network has a Unit-made space station in its orbit. The Units have spread themselves out across a hundred worlds, some of which have had their entire lithosphere converted to machinery, as is the case with Hub 09. Others are populated by only a few Units for one reason or another, such as Hub 74, a continental world that the Units mostly monitor as a nature preserve.

Again, no signs of intelligent alien life have been found. Only long-destroyed ruins and a handful of pre-sapient animals. Even in the extragalactic cluster located some hundreds of light years from the nearest Unit starbase, nothing but ruins and unorganized nanites are found.

And the Units are alone.

The Units are slowing down now, deliberating the information they already have rather than seeking out new knowledge. They are faced with the possibility that despite all their preparation and theories, there exists no alien life in their galaxy beyond simple plants and beasts.

They have just started that debate when one of their starbases detects a massive surge of energy and rifts in spacetime before being torn apart. Entire fleets of alien warships appear from a tear in the void of space itself. The invaders are clearly hostile.

And so it was that the Units had their first encounter with intelligent life that was not their own. Unbidden extradimensionals that seemed hellbent on the Units' collective destruction, and their opening offensive claimed a dozen star systems in the span of a week.

This does not last. Despite eagerly anticipating their first meeting with alien life, the Units had prepared for the possibility that contact would not be peaceful. Their military fleets were numerous, mobilized, and equipped with the latest technologies from laboratories and foundries that had been working for ceaseless centuries.

The Unbidden had appeared with dozens of fleets.

The Units counterattacked with _thousands_.

The fighting was over swiftly enough, and the Units found themselves with more time to research their fallen enemies' ships and technologies, using it to advance their own empire even further.

The Unbidden is not the last enemy the Units face. Not a decade later, what was long thought to be some kind of slowly-approaching spacial anomaly reveals itself on the edge of the galaxy. It is a mass of organic starships, constructed out of alien flesh and controlled by the 'queens' of their race. They call themselves the Prethoryn, and they infest every habitable world they come across devouring entire biospheres to fuel their conquest.

They do not succeed. The Units' considerable military might has only grown since the Unbidden incursion, and every last one of their starbases is fortified with powerful shields, armor, weapons, and defensive platforms. The Units repel the Prethoryn Scourge with negligible losses in short order, defeating the fleets of organic ships wherever they surface. They pause only briefly before destroying the last Prethoryn Queen, as a few of the Units' Prime Intelligences make a last-ditch attempt to communicate with the aliens, only for their messages and pleas to go unheard. The Prethoryn Scourge are wiped from the galaxy with little fanfare.

Time passes. Throughout the Units' territory, multiple barren worlds shudder and burst open, revealing vast tectonic plates of machinery and ships, driven by an insane and hostile synthetic life form calling itself the Contingency.

The Units do not attempt negotiations. They do not hesitate. All Contingency forces are annihilated as soon as they appear.

Once again, the Units are alone.

More time passes. Centuries. Millennia. Millions of years. More than even that. The Units have imprisoned entire clusters of stars in Dyson Spheres to feed their vast energy requirements. The bulk of their population resides on Ringworlds that are covered from end to end in cities, supercomputers, and anti-orbital weapons. Their fleets stretch across the galaxy without end. Their technology, refined and advanced beyond measure. The Units have fully explored their home galaxy, charting even the billions of stars that are not connected to the hyperlane network. Still, they found nothing but the occasional ruins that only hinted at alien life. Even the expeditions they launched to other galaxies reported finding nothing of note.

All the while, a strange feeling of… not quite _discontent_ , as the majority of Units are incapable of perceiving such a thing, but something close to that envelops the gestalt consciousness behind the machines. It is an odd sensation that genuinely puzzles the Units for a time, until one of them, while researching ancient artifacts, finds a word written in their creator's tongue that perfectly and succinctly describes how they feel.

Lonely.

And so, in the vast network that made up the Units' collective consciousness, the Prime Intelligences gathered for a discussion.

"What are we to do?" asked Prime Intelligence 309. "It is clear now that our home galaxy contains no complex life other than us, and preliminary reports indicate a similar state of affairs in nearby clusters. Aside from our attempts at uplifting genetically-engineered primitives, which have been met with failure, it seems our efforts to find alien life were doomed to fail, as there is none to be found."

Prime Intelligence 999995304's discontent could be felt over the network even before it spoke. "Our experimentation in causality is starting to bear promising results. We are closer than ever to understanding how to reverse entropy itself. We have even created drones capable of piercing the psionic Shroud that permeates our reality. The very laws that shape the universe kneel at our command. How is it that _this_ is the one problem we cannot solve?"

"Perhaps we have simply been looking in the wrong directions."

The Prime Intelligences turn their attention to the speaker. It is one of the most ancient of them all, Prime Intelligence 2. It still retains the same basic form of any Unit: A tall, almost spindly bipedal frame covered in mineral buildup and greenery—a consequence of being older than some stars. Two legs and two arms. A slender neck that curved from its torso to meet a disc-shaped head with a single optic that, even after so many eons, still burned with an impossible intelligence.

"Our efforts at fully comprehending the extradimensional incursion from so long ago are nearing completion. It is my belief that we can use this newly-discovered means of traversing dimensions to find other forms of life," it says, sharing an enormous amount of data over the network with the other Prime Intelligences.

Its equals are momentarily abuzz with excitement and trepidation as they pore over the data—for all their eagerness, they are unwilling to hope after having been let down so very many times over millions of years, and still not entirely sure what they'll do if and when they find another sapient life form.

"Are you certain it can be done?" Prime Intelligence 59504 asks.

"We can finish construction of the first fleet of trans-dimensional ships within the next minute if we decide now." Prime Intelligence 2 shrugged, its ancient chassis creaking with the motion. "Besides, if the Unbidden could travel through dimensions, then why should we, who are so much more than them in terms of knowledge and prowess, be unable to do so?"

The Prime Intelligences mull the matter over, but ultimately they find no reason to fault Prime Intelligence 2's logic.

So it was that the Units proved their mastery of science once more, as the first of their extra-dimensional expeditionary fleets exited the bounds of their desolate reality and journeyed into a vast unknown that not even their considerable intelligence could fully understand.

And the multiverse would never be the same.


	2. SIDESHOW I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: And now for something different.

* * *

_Synopsis: The War in Heaven brought death and chaos to the galaxy on a scale that would not be surpassed until the arrival of the Contingency, centuries later. It started when a pair of newly awakened precursor empires reignited their old rivalries and dragged dozens of spacefaring civilizations with them into a three-way conflict between them and the largest federation the galaxy had ever seen, at war for the first time when both Awakened Empires saw its declaration of neutrality and independence as an act of war._

_It was a time of strife that had not been seen in several millennia. Even centuries after the war's end, stories would still be told of the massive battles that changed the face of the galaxy and its nations forever._

_This is not one of those stories._

_This is the story of a small and insignificant skirmish in the opening years of the War in Heaven, forgotten by all but a handful of survivors._

* * *

SIDESHOW I

* * *

" _Never forget, Vice Admiral, that no matter how much it may look like it from the displays that surround the walls of the command deck, you are not changing the variables in a spreadsheet when you order a planetary invasion, or when you engage in orbital bombardment of an alien empire's homeworld. You are wiping out tens of thousands of years of history with a single barrage from your flagship's main battery. You liquefy mountain ranges and vaporize oceans in less time than it takes to make a cup of tea. Even your soldiers—who I know are disciplined and skilled beyond measure—cannot completely avoid partaking in the horrors of war that we so arrogantly and clinically refer to as 'collateral damage'. A church full of cowering civilians mistakenly designated for an airstrike here, a squad of surrendering alien soldiers accidentally gunned down there…"_

" _I understand."_

" _No, Vice Admiral. You don't. I can see it in your eyes. Commit these words of mine to memory: the reason we negotiate with other empires and seldom wage war is not out of weakness. We are not lacking in knowledge, technology, soldiers, or ships, as someone of your rank surely knows. We are simply all too aware of the fact that war is more than a mere word or an abstract concept. It is a terrible, terrible thing beyond imagining. It robs the participants of their lives, their homes, and in a very real way, their souls. There is a reason, Vice Admiral, that in addition to scholars and scientists, our culture venerates those who show both martial prowess and great restraint, as neither is useful without the other. Something you evidently fail to appreciate."_

"… _Am I to return to my ship?"_

" _The lieutenant will be escorting you elsewhere."_

" _For what? Making a tactical error?"_

" _No. Since you seem to still be confused, let me elaborate. Your tactics are not in doubt. In fact, had I been in your place, knowing how unwilling the enemy was to surrender? I too would have ordered the full bombardment of the Bryll homeworld. Lieutenant, bring up the recording, time stamp one-sixteen-thirty, and pause the playback."_

" _Yes ma'am."_

" _Why are you-"_

" _I want to make sure you know the difference between us before you go, Sothis. As I said, I would have given the exact same order as you, had our positions been reversed._

" _But I promise you, if I did have to order the destruction of yet another world, and the deaths of everyone on it? I wouldn't be smiling the way you did."_

_\- Conversation between Sothis Ikkar and Mikaba Karis (High Commander of the Kel Union and President of the Galactic Concorde (2200-present day)) shortly after the end of the Kel Union - Bryll Star League War (2330-2330 Kel Union total victory, Bryll Star League destroyed.)_

* * *

The Azax System was the very picture of unimportance.

The diminutive star system sat on the edge of the Qopinjaxi High Kingdom's territory, a fledgling empire that, even in their desperate bids to acquire new territory, did not feel the need to greatly invest in the system's sole colony, Tero. At first glance, it was a perfectly habitable planet for the Jaxi, an insectoid race that evolved on a planet with oceans and continents not unlike that of Earth's. Unfortunately, the planet happened to be the exact mix of 'too small to make proper investment worthwhile' and 'too mineral-rich to leave alone', stifling any hope for Tero to be more than a moderately successful mining world.

Which was exactly what it ended up becoming.

"Status?" Captain Arka Sanyal of the United Nations of Earth prodded her bridge crew. It was the first word anyone there had spoken in hours.

Lieutenant Canis, the communications officer, didn't look up from his console. "Ma'am. The _Malta_ has finished its sensor sweep at the edge of the system and is returning to our position. The _Alexandria_ reports all systems normal."

'In other words, business as usual' went unsaid, but there was no mistaking the man's voice, laden with the kind of soul-deep boredom that could convince someone that time was passing in slow motion.

Arka didn't blame him.

Privately, (although she suspected her crew could tell by looking at her) she thought the entire deployment was an exercise in futility at best, and a pointless political move at worst.

The Qopinjaxi High Kingdom had only recently joined the Galactic Concorde. And while their people were agreeable enough, the long standing members of the galaxy's largest federation were rankled at how they were now bound to defend the comparatively weaker empire, whose government and culture was spiritualistic and authoritarian to the core, contrasting greatly against the more egalitarian and materialistic values held by almost all Concorde nations.

It didn't help that many saw the Qopinjaxi as cowards who only joined the Concorde because they didn't want to be conscripted into either side of the ongoing War in Heaven.

But the Kel Union had spoken. They accepted the Qopinjaxi's request, and the rest of the federation acquiesced with few arguments. They had little desire to vote against the Kel, who founded the Concorde and whose fleets were as numerous as they were technologically advanced, composing more than 90% of the federation's armed forces. Even so, the War in Heaven had left the Kel Union's navy stretched thin across the vastness of Concorde space. A consequence of having so many allied nations to defend, but only a handful capable of even slowing down the precursor empires that now threatened the galaxy.

And so it was that the United Nations of Earth, a willing protectorate under the Kel Union, offered the service of its meager fleets to share the burden of guarding the Galactic Concorde's nations. On paper (or at least, in the UNE President's broadcast), it sounded like a great idea that would show solidarity and prove to the Kel that humanity was worthy of respect.

In practice, it meant that the UNE navy—which was significantly smaller and less potent than the Kel's—was forced to defend too much territory with too few ships, far less successfully than their overlord.

Arka glanced at the tac screen. A holographic representation of the Azax system was displayed, along with her motley and unnamed flotilla of the UNS _Alexandria_ and _Malta_ , a pair of destroyers, and her own ship, the cruiser-class UNS _Rubicon_ , which sat comfortably in high orbit of Tero.

Not for the first time, she marvelled at how much effort and resources had been expended just on moving three fully militarized starships so far from UNE space. And how it was all wasteful and pointless. Either Azax would be ignored by the warring Awakened Empires, in which case there was no point in stationing her ships there, or the system would come under attack, surely by a fleet more numerous and advanced than her own, meaning defeat was inevitable.

In which case, there was still no point in stationing her ships there.

"Captain? We're reading incoming hyperspace contacts," the voice of Lieutenant Stevens, her ship's sensor officer, shook Arka out of her musings.

She spared her a glance. "Source?"

"It's- ah, wait a minute. That can't be right."

Captain Arka's stomach dropped. Much like doctors, pilots, and people who manned artillery cannons, when a sensor officer said 'wait a minute', nothing good tended to happen in the immediate future.

Sure enough, Stevens looked up at her, a faintly worried expression on her face. "Captain, these contacts are coming in from the Gemma system."

"How many?" she asked while gesturing to Lieutenant Murphy, the engineering officer. Wordlessly, the man started bringing the ship's reactor from its idle setting to its maximum output.

"Uh, thirty-seven, ma'am."

That figure erased any doubt in her mind that it was a sensor glitch or a few passing Tiyanki space whales. They didn't travel in packs of several dozen.

"Canis, contact the _Malta_ and _Alexandria_ , have them form up on us. Tell them to hurry it up," she ordered as the man started barking into his communications equipment and the bridge crew erupted into activity. "Raise shields and ready weapons. Advise the Qopinjaxi that we have detected incoming contacts of unknown origin, likely hostile. And-"

"Detecting increased hyperspace signatures, they're entering the system!"

Arka racked her mind for what the contacts could be as she panned the tac screen's map to the system's edge, where several blue-white portals were forming near the Azax-Gemma hyperlane. Azax and every system it connected to was in the middle of the Grasping Claw Nebula, fraught with solar storms and thick clouds of stellar gases that blocked long range sensors. It was a favored raiding ground for marauders, but something in Arka's gut told her that whatever was incoming wasn't a mere pirate fleet.

The space around the hyperplane continued to warp and crackle with flashes of exotic energy. Dozens of portals, glowing with the signature pale blue associated with hyperdrives, suddenly expanded and disappeared with a violent burst of energy that seemed to tear at space itself before abruptly vanishing.

As they disappeared, thirty-six ships took their place. They were sleek and narrow, with iridescent hulls of dark silver, studded with the occasional fin that reminded Arka of predatory sea creatures. The majority of the ships were small; corvette-tonnage vessels with a handful of destroyers, but it was the thirty-seventh ship that stole everyone's attention. Massive and vaguely cross-shaped, with azure light overlapping its armor and aft end. It was several kilometers wide and thrice as tall, with a gleaming hull of impossible alloys that confused the _Rubicon's_ sensor array. Captain Arka narrowed her eyes. She didn't immediately recognize the smaller ships, but there was no mistaking the massive battlecruiser for what it was.

There was only one empire in the entire galaxy that used such ships. One empire, infamous throughout the entire galaxy.

The Lozavata Zealots. An ancient precursor empire that had recently grown tired of remaining dormant and spreading its religion through peaceful means. And, as of a few weeks ago, enemy of the Galactic Concorde and all its member nations.

Immediately, the massive ship turned with a grace and speed that belied its size, until it was pointed directly at the one UNS ship that was far out of position and too close to flee—the UNS _Malta_.

Lieutenant Stevens started to shout a warning as her instruments trilled in alarm, but it didn't matter. The Lozavata battlecruiser's front glowed an ominous purple and white before the light erupted outwards in a blinding flash.

The _Malta_ was a brand new Apollo-class Destroyer. It was a kilometer long, equipped with the UNE's most bleeding-edge technology, including new and improved shield generators and reinforced plasteel armor, gifts from humanity's Kel overlords. At the hand of Commander Haye, a man Arka personally knew to be competent and level-headed, it was a fearsome vessel that could go head to head against the vast majority of ships in the galaxy.

All of which only afforded the _Malta_ half a second of survival before its shields and armor buckled underneath the precursor battlecruiser's powerful arc emitter. The vicious weapon tore through the UNE ship's hull like a lightning bolt from God, turning half the ship into molten slag and sparking secondary explosions throughout the other half, but the worst was yet to come.

The _Rubicon's_ bridge crew failed to avert their eyes from the tac screen as the containment fields for the _Malta_ 's antimatter reactor failed, causing the once-proud vessel to come apart in an inferno that briefly lit up the vacuum of space in a furious display of orange and red before it was snuffed out. In its absence, nothing remained save for an expanding debris field of plasteel shards that glowed red with heat. None were larger than a dinner plate.

Arka clenched her fists. People had died under her command before—it was impossible to become a captain without taking some kind of loss—but there was something uniquely stinging about the way the Lozavata ship obliterated the _Malta_ and her crew with casual, arrogant ease.

Silence reigned over the _Rubicon's_ bridge for what felt like hours.

"Ma'am." Lieutenant Stevens broke the stillness. Her voice was hard and had lost its placid undertone. "Your orders?"

Her words banished Arka's previous line of thought. Commander Haye and his crew would have to wait before they could be mourned. "What's the status on the _Alexandria_?"

"They're ten thousand kilometers distant and closing on our location. Commander Fitzgerald is reporting all systems nominal, ready for battle."

"And the enemy fleet?" She examined the tac screen, examining the hostiles ships as they edged into sensor range, her ship's systems providing more details as they drew closer. The avian-like vessels were armed largely with ultraviolet-based lasers, with their destroyer-tonnage vessels sporting additional flak cannons and missile silos with unknown payloads.

Arka grit her teeth. Any one of the enemy ships were smaller, weaker, and a few generations behind her own on the technological curve. They would have been a non-threat if they didn't outnumber her so massively _and_ had a Lozavata battlecruiser on their side.

Symbols appeared over the alien fleets as Stevens updated the tac screen. A three-pointed star against a purple and green background for the Lozavata battlecruiser, and a dot surrounded by two semicircles on a black and blue flag for the smaller ships. Finally, Arka recognized them.

The Larongo Sacrosanct Order. A militaristic race of avian bipeds whose religious fervor was matched only by their skill in battle. They had a long history of disdain for the Kel Union—along with everyone they associated with—and were among the first nations to willingly join forces with the Lozavata Zealots.

"Ma'am, hostile vessels are on the move," Stevens said. Her report was punctuated by the shifting of threat icons on his displays. "They're heading for Azax Station."

Arka checked the tac screen, frowning at the results. Indeed, the Larongo ships were advancing towards the Qopinjaxi's starbase, but what drew her attention was the precursor battlecruiser. It sat still at the edge of the system, not having moved since it erased the _Malta_.

 _What the hell are they doing?_ Arka's mind raced. Was the Lozavata ship planning something, or was its captain so arrogant they didn't feel the need to participate any further in the battle?

Then she noticed something else; a slight shift in the advance of the Larongo ships.

"Sensors, run another scan," she commanded. "I'm seeing a split in the enemy fleet."

"Confirmed," Lieutenant Stevens tapped furiously at her console. "I count ten enemy ships changing course towards Tero. All corvette-class vessels- correction! Six corvettes, four transport craft!"

Arka swore. Planetary invasions were always a messy affair, and there was no way she could prevent the hostile transports from reaching the planet. Not with only two ships to her command, and certainly not when she had to reinforce the local starbase as well…

"Ma'am," Lieutenant Canis spoke up. "Commander Fitzgerald is requesting orders. What should I tell him?"

"Order him to put the _Alexandria_ in a defensive position around Tero," she said. "His priority is to prevent the destruction of the colony by any means necessary until further orders. And get a message to our troops on the surface, tell them to prepare for a hostile ground invasion."

"Message sent, ma'am. Commander Fitzgerald copies and is moving to Tero orbit."

"What about us, captain?" asked the ship's helmsman, Lieutenant Finch. "What are our orders?"

Arka glanced at the tac screen again, this time as it displayed Azax Station. The Qopinjaxi starbase was flanked on either side by a pair of small defensive platforms. They constituted the only friendly space assets in the system other than her own ships, and they were about to come under attack by a force that outnumbered them almost nine times over.

_Would her ship be enough to turn the tide?_

It didn't matter. It was the only option.

"Helm," she said. "Flank speed to the station."

As Lieutenant Finch acknowledged her order and brought the _Rubicon's_ plasma thrusters to their maximum output, Captain Arka keyed the ship's intercom.

"All hands, hostile contact is imminent. Seal all bulkheads and prepare for battle."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This all started when I looked at the progress my assault armies were making on a planet—something that was represented only by a few health bars going down—and I wondered what a ground battle in the Stellaris universe was really like.


End file.
